I adopted a 10 year old Cirneco dell’etna; Bella, a breed of Pharaoh Hound from Italy.   Bella was the companion of a very dear friend who died unexpectedly.   However, I was soon to discover Bella came with a lot of issues – some life long and others due to her sudden bereavement and being re-homed.

The most serious was that she bit both me and anyone else who came too close to her and the other was that she seemed to not have been fully toilet trained and used my home as her loo.   Alongside this she was terrified of weather – rain, wind, as well as thunder.   She had an uncanny capacity to predict rain and would spend hours pacing with the risk of urinating uncontrollably.

In desperation I managed to find Ali who came to the house and spent the morning observing Bella and the family’s interactions with her.   Ali devised a programme and with regular phone calls, a year later Bella no longer bites, uses the house as her loo or is fearful of rain.   There is more work to do with her fear of fireworks and thunder but this is now much more manageable. A year on she is now very settled, has learned lots of tricks, and is very playful when friends come to the house.   

I cannot thank Ali enough for the programme she devised and her support in rehabilitating Bella.   We would not be where we are today with a really settled and happy dog!

Mrs Beresford with Bella.